F1 | Red Bull: locks up Waché and Balbo to cover Newey's exit

Adrian Newey's farewell to Red Bull (still awaiting official confirmation) answers some questions and raises new ones. The effects of the March storm are all there, the peace seen so far under the podiums of the race weekends was a facade in favor of the cameras.

At stake are pillars of the Red Bull Racing project, founded twenty years ago on the ashes of Jaguar, so it is reasonable to ask how the team will change, what Red Bull 2.0 will be like after the glorious one which has won 13 world titles so far.

Losing a player like Newey will have inevitable repercussions. It couldn't be otherwise, we are talking about the most titled engineer in the entire history of Formula 1, present in the company since February 2006 and capable over the years of shaping the team according to his guidelines.

When a well-oiled mechanism (winning and celebrated) loses one of its supporting elements, the repercussions must be taken into account. Imagining Red Bull without Newey means thinking of a different team, not necessarily less solid, but deprived of the man who until now has been the one who indicates the direction.

It is not certain, however, that Newey's departure caught the team unprepared. It's true that there are contracts, but Formula 1 teaches that when faced with the desire to break off a collaboration, black and white signatures are of relative importance. 'Genius' is always in great shape but he is obviously no longer a kid, he is traveling very well towards 66 years of age, but in the last ten seasons his commitment at the Milton Keynes headquarters has been intermittent, alternating periods of intense work with others of absence or presence monitored remotely.

Thanks to the gap felt by the Renault power unit towards Mercedes, between 2014 and 2018 Newey has already experienced periods in which his commitment was not that of a usual technical manager, and it was a wake-up call that Horner did not he ignored.

It is unthinkable that the team principal and his most faithful collaborators have not already thought of a post-Newey scenario, a project that has obviously remained in the drawer but is ready to be implemented today.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Flurry of victories are a formidable medicine for every type of problem present in a Formula 1 team, but for some time there have been rumors in the paddock regarding a Newey who is a little annoyed by seeing many responsibilities progressively shifted in the direction of Pierre Waché , promoted by Horner to the role of technical director.

A necessary step to avoid suffering repercussions in any periods of disengagement by 'Genius'. On the opposite front, it is also understandable that some discontent has taken shape over the media's perception of the great work done in recent seasons, punctually reported as Newey's work. The narrative is very oriented towards the 'one man show', but not everyone is happy with it in Milton Keynes. Horner on several occasions celebrated the group's work by carefully weighing the words, not a simple balancing act.

However prepared the team may be, the farewell of the most important man to date in the history of Red Bull triggers some risks. Horner knows well that he cannot afford any more defections, otherwise the danger of suffering heavy backlash will be around the corner.

The technical future of the team is in the hands of Waché (according to the team very armored on the contractual front) and the aerodynamic manager Enrico Balbo, if one of these figures were to give in to the proposals that promptly arrive from the competition the void would be too great, especially in view of a moment in which the foundations are being laid for 2026, the year in which the new technical regulation will come into force.